Monday, September 3, 2012

Deprived

NOTE: This post is 2 months old, but I still wanted to post it. Let's pretend that time travel is somehow the reason it's outdated.

People and books say to "sleep when your baby does" for your first child. They never say what to do if your baby doesn't sleep.

Our colicky baby sleeps an average of 9 hours a day, in a combination of 15-30 minute spurts and the occasional glorious hour (for which he usually needs to be held). Babies his age normally sleep for 16 hours, and my wife would be perfectly content getting ten herself, so although I try to let her sleep in the early hours of the evening, at the end of the day1, everyone in the house is sleep deprived.

Sleep deprivation is considered an "inhuman and degrading treatment" by the European Court of Human Rights. And we know how those Europeans value their sleep, not to mention their vacation days.

All this means radical changes in how we spend our time, compared to the years BB (Before Baby).

Our entire lives are tentative plans that change when our son goes from sleeping to screaming in five seconds flat. We barely get to read, because that requires free hands. We haven't played the Wii at all, and that only requires 5 minute increments. We rarely manage to get in an entire movie, or even TV show together without bouncing on the yoga ball with him the entire time. I never hang out with my friends, which isn't a change, but it's a shame nonetheless.

We also don't cook anything complex (i.e. requiring two hands to prepare). I read this post at The Simple Dollar, and marveled at the idea that people with children have time to make their own lasagna. Either it gets significantly easier, or their kids didn't have colic.

Epilogue: Two months later, it has gotten a little better, but only in that we are less sleep deprived. What time we have won back from colic has been budgeted back into sleep.

Hold on, I think he just started teething a few months early. Gotta go.